Toad, Toadette, and Gender

[Shade]

I'm sorry, but you can't tell me that Toadsworth isn't a dude.

[Iceman404]

I'll just keep calling Toad a 'he' and Toadette a 'she' to avoid complications.

[Tellis]

I'm sorry, but you can't tell me that Toadsworth isn't a dude.

holy shit are your views on gender so narrow you can't accept that a moustache doesn't have to mean it's a dude?

maybe toadsworth likes the look, you don't know, and it doesn't matter

[Iceman404]

See? This is already causing confusion. ^

[Shade]

I'm sorry, but you can't tell me that Toadsworth isn't a dude.

holy shit are your views on gender so narrow you can't accept that a moustache doesn't have to mean it's a dude?

maybe toadsworth likes the look, you don't know, and it doesn't matter

Because obviously the mustache was the decisive factor for me. It couldn't have been the fact that Nintendo has referred to him as a he, grandpa, and father, in multiple forms of media. 

[Sengir]

The fact remains that Nintendo signed their names and published material that refer to Toads as a gendered species. And have done so for decades.

well apparently that's not the case at HQ

(also nintendo signed their names and published far less important material. Mario Teaches Typing is published by Nintendo)

I'm not sure what your point is exactly. Importance wasn't his argument and doesn't really change the fact that Toads have been given an assigned gender in past Nintendo games.

If he's willing to accept translated dialogue from 2nd party titles (Paper Marios by Intelligent Systems, Mario & Luigis by AlphaDream, etc) as equivalent to actual Nintendo interviews, then he's either a) mariowiki or b) in denial/defending his (incorrect) heteronormative perception of the Mario series.

e: not to mention 2nd party titles include the sports, the karts, the parties, puzzle games, pinball and edutainment

[Kriven]

I'm looking at the situation from a Death of the Author perspective, because all that matters to me is the games themselves and the world as presented within them.

Now kindly continue slinging insults at me because I don't agree with one guy's statement about toads.

[Sengir]

Now kindly continue slinging insults at me because I don't agree with one guy's statement about toads.

aka the producer of Captain Toad





(death of the author is stupid as h*ck but thats whatever)

[Crappy Blue Luigi]

Now kindly continue slinging insults at me because I don't agree with one guy's statement about toads.

drop the strawman, kriven. you'd be less infuriating to argue with if you could refrain from simplifying your opposition to make your side look better. your previous posts gave off the vibe of someone who's resistant to the change of what is an extremely minor detail, considering it doesn't interfere with gameplay or even story elements, and not someone with the personal perspective of approaching and assessing works without regard to the author's intentions and opinions.

ignoring the subject matter and the discussion of its relevance or lack thereof, i'd like to stress that there's nothing wrong with restating your position in an argument, but it's not cool to follow that up with a fallacy because you don't like the other party's accusations. just make the correction and continue the discussion, unless you're specifically looking for a way to get out of the conversation on a higher footing.

[Shade]

I'm actually just going to exit the discussion without high or low footing. I always need to remind myself that no matter what anyone says, a person's thoughts and views on a specific matter rarely change. I've stated how I see it and I'm just gonna leave it at that. 

[Kriven]

Now kindly continue slinging insults at me because I don't agree with one guy's statement about toads.

drop the strawman, kriven. you'd be less infuriating to argue with if you could refrain from simplifying your opposition to make your side look better. your previous posts gave off the vibe of someone who's resistant to the change of what is an extremely minor detail, considering it doesn't interfere with gameplay or even story elements, and not someone with the personal perspective of approaching and assessing works without regard to the author's intentions and opinions.

ignoring the subject matter and the discussion of its relevance or lack thereof, i'd like to stress that there's nothing wrong with restating your position in an argument, but it's not cool to follow that up with a fallacy because you don't like the other party's accusations. just make the correction and continue the discussion, unless you're specifically looking for a way to get out of the conversation on a higher footing.

But it's cool to use "heteronormative" in an obviously derogatory way, spit about a person being in denial, and straight up say: "Hey, I don't care what you have to say about this"?

If it's not cool for me to call out character judgements and personal attacks, that's too bad for all you cool kids. And telling me it's a "fallacy" that myself as a person was being put under the knife in that post is a straight up lie.

I'd be less "infuriating" to argue with if people would argue with the material, and not with "Well, he must be like this."

I don't even get this whole "in denial" thing. I'm trying to understand how this could be reconciled with given canon. Moreso, I made specific references to gender and not biological sex, because there isn't anything in the game that even mentions how a toad can reproduce. Saying they're beings without a biological sex, that can make sense (although in the same interview they go on to state that the toads aren't mushrooms, which kind of dashes a reproduction based on spores... I think. Magic spores?), but to say that characters whose identites and even names are based in gender don't have a gender is strange at best.

And really, if it's "an extremely minor detail" why are people getting angry that I questioned the validity of the statement? Clearly it's not "extremely minor" to a whole bunch of folks.

[Jermungandr]

People are reading way too much into this. The quote states simply that the genders of Captain Toad and Toadette specifically are undecided despite their appearances suggesting specific genders. It says nothing about the toad race as a whole. And it does not suggest that these two characters are ungendered either, just that their genders are undecided, implying that Toadette could be a male in female dress for all we know.


And even if it did claim all Toads are genderless, it wouldn't negate the use of pronouns. Even if they are born genderless they can still choose their own gender identity based on their personalities. Calling someone a "she" doesn't necessarily mean "this person has female genitalia" but rather "this person identifies as a female".

This is honestly how I've always seen the Kirby universe to work. I.E. Characters like Kirby are actually asexual but choose to identify as male or female based on their preference. It's not really that foreign of a concept.

[Marth]

How about we end this? THEY ARE FUCKING TOADS. GET OVER IT.

Why in the flying fuck is this causing so much debate? Oh wait let me answer that for you, some of you are incredibly narrow minded assholes on gender and appearance and to you I say good day. If any of you are going to reply to me, don't because I'm checking out of this right here right. "Canon this" "Canon that", fuck you. This is a great idea, it's open to today's people and it relates to many who struggle with identifying themselves and can be very comforting and even introduces children to the idea of not being biased. But no, some of you need to argue trivial bullshit and then pretend to take the moral high ground. Get over it.

[Vipershark]

How about we end this? THEY ARE FUCKING TOADS. GET OVER IT.

Why in the flying fuck is this causing so much debate? Oh wait let me answer that for you, some of you are incredibly narrow minded assholes on gender and appearance and to you I say good day. If any of you are going to reply to me, don't because I'm checking out of this right here right. "Canon this" "Canon that", fuck you. This is a great idea, it's open to today's people and it relates to many who struggle with identifying themselves and can be very comforting and even introduces children to the idea of not being biased. But no, some of you need to argue trivial bullshit and then pretend to take the moral high ground. Get over it.

If this is how the rest of this thread is going to go and posts like this are going to be the norm, this discussion isn't worth having.

You can talk about this all you like if you remain civil to each other but if this thread is just going to devolve into "fuck you, I don't care what you think" (from either side) then I'm going to close the thread.

[Jermungandr]

Not that I disagree with your statement or anything, but please don't punish everyone else because one person popped in at random and had a panic attack.